CHERRYVILLE FIRE

Mr ODENWALDER (Little Para) (15:01): Thank you, sir. My question is to the Minister for Emergency Services. Can the minister inform the house about the investigation he called for in relation to the Cherryville Fire of May 2013?

The Hon. M.F. O'BRIEN (Napier—Minister for Finance, Minister for Police, Minister for Correctional Services, Minister for Emergency Services, Minister for Road Safety) (15:01): I thank the member for Little Para for the question and I would like to acknowledge the ongoing interest of the member for Bragg and the member for Morialta in this particular issue and the fact that they were on the ground while the fire was in progress.

As members are aware, on 9 May 2013, a fire started at Cherryville in the Mount Lofty Ranges. The ignition of the blaze occurred outside the official fire danger season which ended in the Mount Lofty Ranges on 30 April 2013. It has been established the fire spread from a private burn-off and police investigated the cause of the fire and decided no charges could be laid or would be laid. The weather and ground conditions were such that the fire burnt 620 hectares of bushland and destroyed one home and some fences before it was ultimately contained.

I again put on the record my appreciation for the management and volunteers of the Country Fire Service who worked diligently and efficiently to control and extinguish the blaze, and I think we are all aware, particularly the member for Morialta, that they came from all over the state. I saw fire appliances on the ground in the Cherryville area from locations very far distant from the metropolitan area.

I can inform the house that, in the weeks after the fire, I referred the matters I just mentioned to the State Bushfire Coordination Committee, which is established under section 71 of the Fire and Emergency Services Act. The SBCC formed a special subcommittee comprising eight of its members and shared by a member representing local government. The special subcommittee has completed its report which was accepted and endorsed recently by the full subcommittee.

The key findings of the report are that there was no justification for a declaration of a total fire ban for the Mount Lofty fire district on 9 May 2013 because the fire danger index was forecast to be 33, well below the declaration trigger of 50. Secondly, there was no justification for any extension of the fire danger season beyond 30 April 2013 for the Mount Lofty fire ban district. However, the committee also found that the process used by the state's nine bushfire management committees in developing recommendations for the commencement and cessation of the fire danger season is inconsistent across the state.

The committee has tendered advice to government that the process should be improved by using a prescriptive and documented approach for data assessment. The committee has also recommended that codes of practice be developed for agricultural burning, pole burning and appliance use where those activities occur outside the prescribed fire danger season, and I think that is probably the most salient and important recommendation that has come out of the subcommittee. The government has accepted the committee's recommendations and wishes it to commence work immediately on the propositions it has put forward. I can inform members that the report is available on the CFS website and copies can also be obtained.